Projects in Progress

Our Nine-month Comprehensive class recently wrapped up the Product Development portion of the course, where they spend five weeks intensively designing and developing small furnishings and housewares. While most portions of the Nine-month curriculum focus heavily on technique and design, Product Development also emphasizes real-world concerns such as speed, efficiency, and marketing. The students’ creativity is challenged in creating multiple pieces within a set price point, and this year’s variety included lighting, instruments, plant holders, and even coffins!

Our 2018 Turning Intensive class just wrapped up today, and students are sweeping the studio and packing away their tools and projects. There is always a bittersweet sense of accomplishment at the end of our Intensive courses – so much was learned, and now there is so much to do! This group of turners was very prolific over the eight weeks of their course, and they are heading home with not only new skills and experience, but a beautiful collection of colorful turned tools, stools, vessels, and spindles.

The Curvature portion of the Nine-month Comprehensive is always an interesting time to walk through the shops. Students are exposed to a wide array of bending techniques over the span of the 5 week segment, and apply these techniques to an original design. A walk through the bench and machine room during “curves” is always full of surprises, and this year is no exception.

Casepiece projects are wrapping up on campus, as both the Nine-month Comprehensive and Furniture Intensive students reach the end of the casepiece curriculum. The only requirement for the project is to include at least one door and one drawer, essential skills for a furniture maker. This project pushes students to begin to develop their aesthetics, and also teaches essential skills in time management and workflow organization.

The second project of the Nine-month Comprehensive is focused on honing machine skills and learning the value of well-made shop fixtures and tooling. For three weeks students all work on variations of a tool cabinet design: everyone relies on the same jigs and builds a cabinet of the same basic proportions, with the ability to customize the interior to best fit their personal tool collection.

Our Furniture Intensive students are beginning the sixth week of their twelve-week program, and their second project is already well underway. Here in mid-coast Maine the weather is (slowly!) changing from winter to spring, and the longer daylight hours seem to mean longer hours in the shop for this dedicated group.

Guest instructor Bruce Beeken has recently joined lead instructor Aled Lewis in the Nine-month Comprehensive for the curvature portion of the course. Over the span of 5 weeks, students are exposed to steam and laminate bending, as well as a range of other curve-forming techniques.